The recent imperative of efficiency in the delivery of health care has generated a need and strong interest in consumer driven health plans, in which the premiums, contributory payment and other costs may be based on an array of factors, including the individual consumer's status of health and on their assumption and assessment of health risks. In this environment, it is important to understand and quantify differences in health status when analyzing the cost efficiency of different health plans for the purpose of establishing employee contribution requirements.
In such “user-centric” or “patient-centric” schemes, it is important for the individual consumers to have control on their health care decisions based on informative health guidelines. The general-purpose guidelines, when available, may not be interpreted by the users correctly, may be inapplicable to a particular consumer, or worse, may be harmful for their personal risk-profile.
Hence, there exists a need for a reliable system for personalized health guidelines incorporating users' health risks and other relevant information for the consumer to make informed decisions.
Providers of health plans, on the other hand, can use such a system to contain costs through the use of timely interventions, especially in the case of chronic disease; their key requirement is a reliable means to identify and categorize user needs based on their individual health risks.
There are many “users” with an interest in a health management system, including individual consumers, payers, health professionals and manufacturers, suppliers and providers, and third party administrators of health products and services.
Since it is possible to make personalized health information available to the diverse types of user groups with the help of the new media, therefore the providers of information dissemination networks and media may also be thought of as a “user” group whose needs intersect those of other groups of users of the system.
Computer networks, including the Internet, offer unprecedented opportunity for customized health care management by making information interactively available; opportunity exists, therefore, to provide information interactively and under user's control not only for the health guidelines based on personal risk factors and health care management parameters but also peripheral information, such as, the products and services that can assist the user in following the guidelines.
The value of information related to the products and services available in the marketplace should not be minimized, since in many cases availability of the right product or service can make the difference between success and failure of health regimen and the patient's following of the medical recommendations. Appropriate dietary products, such as a sugar substitute for diabetes and gluten-free recipes for celiac disease, or behavioral support group in a neighborhood are but simple examples of such market based products and services.
A robust system incorporating access to all relevant information from one “under one roof” can be useful to the consumers of healthcare, where relevant information for the user's decision making is either stored in a searchable database within the system or importable on demand.
At the present time, there is no available system for health management that incorporates integration of comprehensive health related information with the market-based data of useful products and services.
The system of the present invention is designed to provide relevant information, derived from multiple sources, at the fingertips of the user, personalized based on their individual requirements utilizing interactive dialog and robust filtering mechanisms. It includes components that filter and elicit the relevant information for the diverse groups of users noted above based on their need and scope.
In particular, for the individual consumer the filters provide personalized information to be extracted and shared based on the filters under consumer's direction and control.
The system of this invention incorporates privacy safeguards, including components that verify the authenticity of the user and the scope of the user's authority for each transaction and, except where otherwise required by law, allows consumer to retain complete control of personalized data.
Some of the components of this invention have been proposed and described in the prior art by the present inventors and others, as listed below. The present invention, however, is the first to conceive an integrated approach as described below in Summary and Detailed Description sections. The relevant prior art references are as follows:    Van-Fulpen, D. C., Guide To Contented Hearts: Cardiac Risk Management. Kalamazoo, Contented Hearts, Inc., 1995.    Framingham Risk Score, Wilson, et. al., Prediction of coronary heart disease. Circulation 1998: 97; 1837-1847    Real Age research U.S. Pat. No. 6,269,339—Inventors: Silver; Charles (La Jolla, Calif.) Assignee: Real Age, Inc. (San Diego, Calif.) application Ser. No. 09/222,687 Filed: Dec. 29, 1998.    Goldfield, N., Averill, R., Eisenhandler, J., Steinbeck, B., and others. The Prospective Risk Adjustment System, Journal of Ambulatory Care Management, 1999, 22(2), 41-52.    Recommender Systems—Resnick, Varian    Jeff Roitman, et. al.—A New Model for risk Stratification and Delivery of Cardiovascular Rehabilitation Services in the Long-Term Clinical Management of Patients with Coronary Artery Disease. J Cardiopulmonary Rehabilitation 1998: 18:1-000 Stratification—Notes included here—can site literature if needed.    Cpt Codes: Counseling and/or risk factor reduction intervention 99401-99402 © AMA book.